And it’s a good thing. A very, very good thing.

There has probably never been an actor, or a human being for that matter, quite like Cillian Murphy — and this year’s Berlinale has the Golden Globes winner featured in their opening film. A coup, for sure.

Plane rides for me are pretty uneventful, usually. This morning’s was anything but, as recent Golden Globes winner and Academy Award nominee Cillian Murphy sat in the row behind mine on the way over from London. I wouldn’t have paid attention to him had it not been for his skin, which glows like a placid lake on the full moon night and his deep blue eyes — and I mean royal blue, unlike anything you’ve ever seen in real life. I promise.

I’m never shy but I also realized the sanctity of the moment, probably taking my cue from the hood of his hoodie pulled way over his head as the plane finished boarding, and never invaded his space or interrupted his quiet flight. But I knew, when I got off that plane, that I needed to rush into Berlin from the airport to watch the last press screening of this year’s opening film Small Things Like These, which stars Murphy in the cinematic version of the Orwell prize-winning 2021 book by Irish writer Claire Keegan.

After a near miss — the ticketing system showed no available tickets for the morning’s press screenings and the film sold out on all public screenings — I managed a ticket in the last minutes before the start of the film and sat down in the comfort of the CinemaxX theater. There, I watched a masterpiece unfurl before my eyes.

Quiet, slow, intimate and tender, the film is directed by an unlikely filmmaker, Tim Mielants, who described himself as “a weird guy from Belgium” in this interview in The Hollywood Reporter. But this Belgian guy’s treatment of a truly Irish story, yet one that could have taken place in Southern Italy, or even Southern Iran for that matter, is golden. Aided by Enda Walsh who adapted the book into a phenomenal screenplay.

The story of how religion possesses the power to hurt people with its dogmas and fundamentalism is an incredibly universal theme, one we are confronted with constantly these days. Too many children born, nuns running charities, what they define institutions for “lost girls” and of course Catholic guilt are just some of Catholicism’s terrible byproducts in Ireland of course, but really anywhere in the world where the Church has laid claim to the people.

Watch below an excerpt just released of a scene between Murphy and Emily Watson, who plays Sister Mary.

Far from the more Hollywood-y, sentimental approach of the 2013 film Philomena, starring Judi Dench, which first introduced us cinematically to the story of the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, Small Things Like These gives us the history, but viewed through the eyes of a man who can’t quite come to terms with the idea of sitting out a wrong done. Murphy as Bill Furlong is spellbinding, harnessing even further that Oppenheimer inner conflict that is winning him praises and award. Furlong could be defined as a depressed character, someone who can’t watch the suffering of others without doing something about it. But through the first two thirds of the film, his battle is mostly within himself, through his childhood memories and with his lack of action. This type, in cinematic terms, is about as exciting as watching paint dry, and yet in his masterful hands he becomes a great inspiration, someone who truly understands the power of one. And does something to right the wrongs of his past. Or wrong the rights of his past, in his case.

You’ll have to watch it to believe it, and to understand just what I mean. The film also stars Eileen Walsh and Michelle Fairley and is produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck via their production company Artists Equity.

The Berlinale runs through February 25th, 2024.

Top image courtesy of the Berlinale, used with permission.